The Mex Files

Daniel Hernandez (Intersections) caught this eye-catching family portrait, one of a series under the title “Familias Mexicanas” now at the Centro Medico Metro Station. As Daniel writes

The metro in D.F. is truly the working citizen’s art museum. Many stations feature permanent murals and sculptures or pre-Hispanic artifacts, such as the Ehecatl pyramid that sits in the middle of metro Pino Suarez. There are also temporary exhibits.

Mexico City is fast gaining a reputation as one of the major centers of the world for cutting-edge art exhibits.

Such is life in the new Mexico City. A decade ago, such a heavy-hitting lineup of openings would have seemed incredible in a sprawling metropolis that is known more for its smog and crime — both of which are still omnipresent. But now the contemporary art scene has matured into one that’s so firmly international that such art-studded evenings are par for the course. And frankly, it’s a lot more fun than its counterparts in the northern art capitals like New York City and London.

I had a Mexican acquaintance whose late dad once showed up on Day of the Dead.  She told him to get lost, they were doing fine without his kibbutzing…

George Carlin (12 May 1937 - 23 June 2008, D.E.P.) was Irish Catholic, but maybe he should have been Mexican…

“We’re all fucked. It helps to remember that.”

Alfredo (citius64) found this recently in Reforma. It was worth translating in its fully glory, not just for the interesting crime itself, nor for my admiration at the way correspondent Ana Laura Vasquez was able to stretch out the word count by including the police report number (TWICE!) but because I’ve never read a nota rota with such a distinguished list of “victims”.

Tlaxcala, México (21 May 2008 ) — A priest, Rolando Corona Eliosa has been apprehended by the Tlaxcala Federal Prosecutor’s Office on suspicion of robbing sacred art.

The approximately 36 year old cleric was arrested in Municipio San Pablo del Monte, in the southern part of the state, and locked up in the Center for Social Readaption of the Tlaxcalan capital according to informatin provided by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office

According to investigations arising from criminal investigation, AP/RGR/TLAX/35/2004, the suspect, a parish priest in the community of San Andrés Buenavista, took six retablos stored in the chapel of the ex-hacienda El Rosario and from another church in the Municipio of Tlaxco, allegedly for restoration.

However, he did not have the permission of his superiors, nor of the the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) to do so.

In March 2004, he took retablos representing Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Rosalia, Saint Vincent Ferrer, God the Father and the Sorrowful Mother of Jesus as well as an unidentified piece.

On the fifth of September in that same year, when the directors of the ex-hacienda solicited the return of their pieces, Corona Eliosa sent painted replicas.

In March 2005, INAH personnel became suspicious, and conducted tests on the retablos, discovering the counterfeit works.

For having falsified the images, ecclesiastical authorities have suspended Corona Eliosa from his priestly functions.

When questioned, the detainee returned the retablos of Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Rosalia, Saint Vincent Ferrer, God the Father and the Sorrowful Mother of Jesus, but the whereabouts of the unidentified piece are unknown.

As a result of these events, the social representative of the Federation opened criminal investigation file AP/PRG/TLAX/35/3004, including relevent complaints, and – not being able to locate the missing oil painting – determined there was a probable criminal violation of the Federal Law Regarding Monuments, Archeological Zones, Artistic and Historical Works.

“Federal agents complied with an apprehension order requested by the Federal Minister’s Office for crimes against the people of San Pablo del Monte, taking the prisoner to the Center for Social Readaption in the state Capital while the legal process continues,” the Federal Prosecutor’s Office press release stated.

However, the priest could be released on conditional liberty since robbing sacred art is not considered a serious crime in Tlaxcala.

I wasn’t going to post this until tomorrow, but George Friedman’s usual bleak analysis for Stratfor (Mexico: On the Road to a Failed State?) was sent to me a few minutes ago. Friedman, in what you expect from a report meant to sell security services in the United States, at least does see narotics exports as a problem primarily for the United States:

The amount of money accumulated in Mexico derives from smuggling operations in the United States. Drugs go one way, money another. But all the money doesn’t have to return to Mexico or to third-party countries. If Mexico fails, the leading cartels will compete in the United States, and that competition will extend to the source of the money as well. We have already seen cartel violence in the border areas of the United States, but this risk is not limited to that. The same process that we see under way in Mexico could extend to the United States; logic dictates that it would.

The current issue is control of the source of drugs and of the supply chain that delivers drugs to retail customers in the United States. The struggle for control of the source and the supply chain also will involve a struggle for control of markets. The process of intimidation of government and police officials, as well as bribing them, can take place in market towns such as Los Angeles or Chicago, as well as production centers or transshipment points.

I see no evidence that “loyalties are shifting to the cartels.” A lot of thoughtful people are worried by the administration’s response to drug trafficking, but that just means people believe the policy is a failure, not the state. Incidentally, “failed state” — though coined by that old anarchist Noam Chomsky (who says the United States is a “failed state”) — is normally used to justify intervention in the “failed” nation (Haiti, Bosnia, etc.), or to sell military equipment (Colombia) on the pretext that “we” can’t afford to let “them” fail.

Tiny, dirt-poor Guinea-Bissau, is called a “failed state” basically because it has a thriving narcotics transshipment trade… but then, that’s about all Guinea-Bissau has. Mexico has — and will continue to have — oil, gold, silver, lead, agricultural products, fisheries, manufacturing, film, etc. etc. etc. industries. Even if the narcotics trade is — as Friedman claims — responsible for 40 billion dollars a year the U.S. spends overseas, it doesn’t mean all of that money goes to Mexico… nor that the Mexican economy is solely dependent on that money (or that… given about forty years… the source of funding for other Mexican businesses will matter all that much). However, media attention (corporate media attention??? — see the end of my piece) ignores the economic reality in favor of the “failed state” alarmist reports.

My point (which needs to be clarified, and I may revise this later) is that the top-down approach — and military solution — being pursued by the Calderon administration is creating problems. Throwing more military forces at the problem, like the U.S. “surge” in Iraq, is counter-intuitive. Especially when tried and true techniques (like better police work, and rural development programs) — mixed with shutting off the weapons and money spigot from the United States — are likely to be more effective in the long run.

And, besides… everyone expected “drug violence” to include attacks on police officials over the short term. But, unfortunately, we believe what’s in our interest to believe. And, it’s in the interest of Statfor’s clients to invest in military “solutions” rather than resolve the root cause of a national problem.

With the gangsters bumping each other off all over Cuilcán (and one Sinaloa Ministeral Police — i.e., the investigative police — chief here in Mazatlán) the predictable reaction by the Calderon administration is to throw more soldiers at the problem.

Given that the soldiers and federal police are probably a greater danger to us civilians than the gangsters. The gangsters generally hit their targets, anyway. And, seeing they have had to advertise for openings, and aren’t as well armed as you think, maybe going about this the wrong way.

The big hit last week — Chapo Guzmán’s kid — was with a bazooka. You can’t tell me the gangsters have more than one of ‘em. That’s basic “CSI” type work — trace back the weapon to its source, and follow it back. When Edgar Millán Gomez (who was a high-ranking police official, but not “Mexico’s Police Chief” as simplistic foreign press reports called him) was killed, it was old fashioned police work that caught the presumed killers. Mexico City doesn’t have the best cops on the planet, but the tried and true “be on the lookout for…” caught the presumed hitman. Yeah, maybe some “extraordinary rendition” was used to work out who else was involved, but in police killings, these things happen.

My point is that the fight against the drug dealers — if it’s necessary — is NOT analogous to some “Shi’ite v. Sunni” war (as a witty observer in Mazatlán noted), but just the same kind of fight Al Capone and Dutch Shultz had with Eliot Ness. In 1920s Chicago the police (then, as now, notoriously corrupt) took their casualties, and sometimes got their man. The feds — despite Eliot Ness’ later tall tales — mostly stuck to basic things like investigating tax returns and following the money. There was never any thought of sending in the soldiers. The only thing calling out the Army does is put more firepower into the mix. Which may be the point.

All of which makes me think that Lopez Obrador is on to something.

Vicente Fox, being a business executive, saw the drug export trade as a business — a nasty one — but a business nonetheless. You get the feeling he was content to let “market solutions” resolve the worst problems (i.e. let the gangsters kill each other) and tried to correct some abuses at the consumer level — must to the horror of the U.S. press, which had Fox’s very good idea (defining what constituted “personal use” narcotics, and not wasting police resources on small users) completely ass-backwards … reporting it as “legalized drug use”. Fox, alas, was not the Great Communicator… or even a particularly good communicator.

You’d expect Felipe Calderon, with degrees in economics and administration, to recognize the drug export wars as economic and the police problem as basically an administrative one. Which he has. But, like George W. Bush and others, he turns away from the conservative belief in “grassroots solutions” and opts for federalizing and nationalizing “problems” with a single solution.

Lopez Obrador, as a social worker, is looking at the problem from his perspective. I realize that Lopez Obrador’s natural reaction to anything Felipe Calderon does is to start singing the old Groucho Marx song, “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It,” but AMLO does seem to be the only one focused on the issue as a social problem.

Fox was correct in a lot of ways. Cocaine is not Mexico’s problem (coca doesn’t even grow in Mexico), but because it is transshipped through Mexico, dumping surplus cocaine on the Mexican market is a problem. Other than working with users, there isn’t a lot that could be done here, until the U.S. deals with their consumption problem, or with the financial and material support it provides to Mexican shippers. But, that’s not a Mexican problem. If cocaine doesn’t come through Mexico, it will come through somewhere else until something is done about consumer demand.

Mexico’s domestic drug exports — marijuana, methamphetamines and some heroin, are alll rural products. AMLO was correct in suggesting more legitimate resources need to go to the rural regions. While Calderon’s government has had some success in cutting off supplies for meth production, until rural residents have better incomes, they’re going to continue growing what they can sell — including opium poppies. (I wonder if it wouldn’t be more costThe Mex Files › Edit — WordPress effective for the U.S. to simply offer to buy up the harvest at market prices… and maybe throw in a school or a few medical clinics and supermarkets than to spend money building prisons and trying to force Mexico to buy hardware with U.S. money).

If I’m reading AMLO’s suggestions correctly, he’s blaming capitalism and the corporate media for the violence. Socialists are supposed to blame capitalism, so that’s expected. But unless he’s talking about nationalizing the marijuana industry (now there’s a thought!… or I suppose Mexico could find a domestic market use, like Bolivia did with coca), I think he’s referring to the same platform he always has… more development funds for the rural areas (and, I’d suggest spending more on rural police training and salaries, which would cut down on the need for military intervention) and concentrating on domestic market development is going to do more than any fleet of heliocopters.

Blaming the media… well, of course AMLO does that, but he doesn’t seem to mean that they’re glorifying the “drug war” or glamorizing the combatants. And suggesting that “one size fits all” when it comes to resolving the issue. And assuming there is a “war” to be won or lost.

Mysteriously, the United States Postal Service has issued a stamp honoring Chicano journalist Ruben Salazar. I say mysteriously because the powers-that-be don’t usually honor people whose heads were blown off by rampaging police officers breaking up a peace demonstration.

A tip of the sombrero to Janinsanfran who has… as they say… the rest of the story.

I don’t know that stupid court cases are particularly Mexican, but this particular stupid court case has its own Mexican flavor. Translated from Condena juez a poeta por ultraje a la bandera, reported by Lorenzo Chin in Thursday’s Jornada.

Court fines are multiples of the “salario minimo” which is usually translated as “minimum wage,” although it is more a benchmark figure for the cost of living in geographic areas of the country, as well as the lowest minimum daily wage. With Mexico having gone through devaluations several years ago, this was a handy way of not having to change the legal code every time the country went through a round of inflation or there was a currency change.

Campeche, Camp., 7 May 2008: Second District Court Judge, Jesus Bañales Sanchez, fined the outspoken poet Sergio Hernán Witz Rodriguez 50 pesos and gave him a “public reprimand” after finding the poet guilty of “outrage to the flag” for authoring a poem” to find it responsible for the crime of ultraje to the national standards, by his responsibility of the poem Invitation to a country full of shit [Invitación: La Patria entre la mierda]

Later that afternoon, the writer and university professor appealed his sentence, which he considers “ridiculous”. In spite of the very small fine (one “salario minimo” for Geographic Zone “C” which includes Campeche), Witz said that he will not accept that he has committed any crime by exerting his right to free expression.

In addition, Witz claims Federal Prosecutor’s office for Campeche Delegation prejudged the case. He noted that the Prosecutor’s office issued a press release about his sentence three hours before his court appearance.

Interviewed in person moments after his hearing, the poet said that once again the Mexican judicial system has held itself up for ridicule.

“But, seriously, it’s less the fifty pesos than the arguments on which they based the sentence.”

Of course, for writers in Mexico, fifty pesos could be a big deal.

It’s not only la Virgen who shows up on tortilla these days…

Sombrero tip to Nezua

Under the Presidential system that prevailed in Mexico for most of the last two centuries, a “good” deputy was someone like 1960s president Gustavo Diaz Ordaz. He made his reputation as a deputy, not for any innovative legislation, or any particular skill in shepherding legislation through the Chamber, but for making sure opposition deputies dutifully applauded the President. During the First of September Informe, Diaz Ordaz would position himself behind whoever was the leader of the few opposition party legislators in the Chamber, and jam a pistol in their ribs when they needed to applaud. After the 1988 Presidential elections, “won” by Carlos Salinas, the trade-off that allowed that dubious election to stand was that the legislative election results were relatively honest… giving Mexico for the first time a strong multi-party legislature. A series of political reforms followed, giving Mexico a more balanced political system.

While Felipe Calderon may have won the 2006 election (which is an interesting historical question, but I’ll assume he did), PAN does not control the legislature. Under the proportional system used to select legislators, PAN has the most seats, but not the majority. Only by working with PRI, the PRI allied Greens and PANAL (Elba Esther’s party), do they have enough votes to push through Don Felipe’s proposals. But … even in PAN, PRI and among the Greens, there are deputies and senators who believe in the separation of powers… and — even if they support the President — are loathe to act as a rubber stamp congress.

With PRI more or less in agreement with PAN on certain issues, it fell to FAP — the PRD, Workers Party and Convergencia alliance — to form a credible opposition. FAP (Frente Amplio Progresist, or “Wide Progressive Front”) is an outgrowth of Lopez Obrador’s “Benefit of All” coalition, nominally, AMLO remains the head of the opposition, though not everyone in the coalition supports his “legitimate presidency”.

Felipe Calderon’s administration has, after making concessions to PRI senators who would not accept the original proposal, finally submitted an “energy reform” (reform in Spanish does not necessarily mean “better”… just new and different) bill to the Legislature. Calderon is demanding that the bill be passed as written — with no discussion — within fifty days. The opposition, and some PRI legislators, are chary of allowing the Presidential demands. While they lack the votes to send the bill back to the President, the opposition is seeking changes.

However, FAP (and Lopez Obrador) sees the presidential timetable ias unrealistic. So, FAP locked the rest of the legislature out of the Chamber and has been holding a sit-in for the last two weeks.

It is not, as USA Today reports, a “Congressional Coup” … nor is it “stalling urgent energy reforms”. It is the way a government with separation of power is supposed to work. In the U.S. Senate, a filibuster would be used to hold up the bill until the minority was satisfied. Not having a fillibuster in either the Chamber or the Senate, the Mexican legislature has taken the creative step of taking over the Chamber, preventing any bill from coming to the floor… and denying a quorum to the bill’s supporters.

As “Burro Hall” said, “These are not long-haired student protesters, remember, but the elected representatives of the people. Real-life consequences of all this aside, how fuckin’ cool is this country?” How cool is it that even 80-year old Senator Rosario Ibarra is living on take-out pizza and making do with a sleeping bag at night (though, I have it on good authority that the Senadora gets to sleep on a couch). Very cool.

The legislative sleep-over is a lot more theatrical than a fillibuster, but then Mexican politics, despite it’s theatrical qualities, isn’t that different from politics anywhere else. Nor is the response.

PAN — and PAN advisors like Rob Alyn and Dick Morris — introduced American-style campaigning to Mexico during Vicente Fox’s 2000 campaign. After the 2006 campaign, complaints from FAP and PRI led to legal changes in election laws, which supposedly did away with the personal smear campaigns that U.S. Republicans had introduced to the Mexican counterparts. It seems that the Mexican reactionaries — like their counterparts in the U.S. — have found a temporary loophole.

In the U.S. we had “astroturf” organizations … supposedly “grass roots” citizen’s organizations that turn out to be fronts for corporate interests. In Mexico, there is “Mejor Sociedad Mejor Gobierno”, trying to create the illusion of a citizens’ group supporting the President in this struggle. However, “Mejor Sociedad Mejor Gobierno” seems to be businessman Guillermo Velasco Arzac, and a few of his friends. Velasco Arzac, as you might suspect, is the hierophant (high mucky-muck) of the secretive, fascist-Catholic “Yunque”.

The hierophant of el Yunque hasn’t just taken up “astroturfing”, but has adopted a second American political technique, swiftboating. According to Source Watch:

The term swiftboating “comes from a 2004 television ad that undermined [John] Kerry’s status as a decorated Vietnam War hero, making less stark the contrast between him and George Bush, a self-proclaimed ‘wartime leader’ who’d never heard a shot fired in anger,” William Triplet wrote in Variety, February 5, 2006.
“If you can construct believable stories with enough truth in them to smear somebody royally, boy, is there a pot of gold waiting for you in D.C.,” Triplet said. “Spin doctors are nothing new in politics, but a certain type — equal parts scriptwriter, opposition researcher and ruthless street fighter — is increasingly in demand, and for good reason.

What “Mejor Sociedad” has been doing is running commercials on television that compare Lopez Obrador in particular, and the FAP in general, to… Pinochet, Mussolini, Victoriano Huerta and Adolf Hitler. Which is a weird choice for a fascist front organization to do… but then, Velasco Arzac and company are smart enough to realize that their heros aren’t exactly near and dear to the Mexican heart. Nor, for that matter, are the two they don’t mention.

Carlos Montsivias notes that Yunque is rooted in Spanish Falangism… yet no mention is made of Francisco Franco. He isn’t the only one to call the campaign “abject, stupid and shameful”. Even PAN leaders are having a hard time defending this one.

Mexican political practice does have one huge difference from the U.S. These kinds of attack ads are illegal.  They are definitely illegal when done by political parties, but whether “swiftboating” by “astroturf organizations” are is still being determined.

Good propaganda?  That’s for you to decide:

Maybe this isn’t your idea of a house, but Mexican architect Javier Senosiaian’s “Arquetura organica” — which seeks to build Mexican homes for the Mexican environment — is worth a look.

This is his 1992 “Mexican Whale”… of which Senosiaian says:

The core of the architonic concept of this house is the result of a search for man’s natural space and his historic and cultural roots along with the constructional traditions of Mexican art.

Whatever. It sure would stand out in your subdivision… unless your subdivision was the one Senosiaian designed in Lerma…

Traditional homebuilders in Mexican homes have been slow to change their thinking. As in the United States and the wealthy countries, more and more adults live on their own — either single, or as couples independent of their multi-generational family homes. Some of these “new” Mexicans want to live in suburbia, just like in the rich countries. To meet their needs, the 1990 Lerma complex included what are basically stand-alone efficiency apartments. They look… well… NUTS…

Peanuts, to be exact –

Francisco Rafael Arellano Félix, the oldest of the seven Arellano Félix brothers, whose extradition to the United States was such a big freakin’ deal in September 2006 has done his time, and was released in El Paso earlierthis month (5 March). He crossed over into Ciudad Juarez and… who knows what he’s up to?

Extraditing these gangsters to the U.S. was supposed to be the whole point of the “War on Drug” (dealers)… but apparently, the U.S. just wants to claim they’ve held them for a time. And, the violence spawned by breaking up the narco-gangs (and extraditing people like Francisco Rafael) is what is making border cities (like Juarez) seem even more unsavory than normal.

Scott Hensen writes in “Grits for Breakfast“:

After a guilty plea earned him a 6-year federal sentence just last October, a top leader from the notorious “Tijuana Cartel” was cut loose last week, crossing back into Mexico from El Paso after spending less than six months in a federal prison in Texas. (Don’t worry, though, we’ve replaced him with this guy, a lower-level lieutenant working for one of his brothers - you wouldn’t want an empty prison bed!)

Maybe somebody with a PACER account and knowledge of federal sentencing guidelines can take a look at this case and tell me how this guy got out so soon. I really don’t understand it, since there’s no parole in the federal system.

The Tijuana Cartel for years dominated drug trafficking into Southern California, but decades-long focus from law enforcement combined with new, powerful and bloodthirsty competitors have weakened the family-run enterprise.

The only thing that makes sense (both logical, though somewhat in the category of nutty paranoid conspiracy thinking) is that somebody (but who?) decided the Mexican “War on (some) Drug (exporters) either is going too well before U.S. taxpayer funds can be plausibly spent on “Plan Merida” — or, that someone is looking at the economics of the narcotics export biz, and figured out that — good capitalists that they are — without competition in the industry, there will be a monopoly.  Which certainly is not in the consumers’ interests.

I’m not certain the narcotics trade — if it is going to remain illegal (and it is) — isn’t better off being managed by organized criminals like the Arellano Félix brothers. Having recently opened an account at a bank that started out as a money laundry for the British opium trade of the 1850s, I’ve been wondering how many hands “dirty money” has to pass through before it is respectable again.   As Honore de Balzac once wrote, “Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.”